The Seminar about the Alternatives to the Neoliberal
Forces
MEP Esko Seppänen Amsterdam 14.6.1997
Today, in Europe the old capitalist economy governed by
national states has been replaced
by a new economic system. This new economic system is
called global capitalism and in
Europe the EU is its present being. Moreover, the EU can
not be seen as a counter force for
global capitalism. In fact, global capitalism does not
have anywhere any kind of real counter
force. This is due to the fact that there is no
contemporary political system equivalent to the
global capitalism. Capitalist societies are not
identical, but organic systems very different
from one another.
Antonio Gramsci wrote about "pessimism of reason
and optimism of will". What he meant
by this, is that one must have the will and the strength
within the present structures, within
the forces producing the present reality to act for a
new progressive order.
We must know the present in order to be able to
create counter forces for it. We must be
able to identify our enemies: this is to say the logic
of the state byrocracy and the logic of the
interrelated free market mechanisms. Moreover, we must
form a shared understanding about the metaphysics behind
the global capitalism. Just like Marx analyzed
capitalism of his time, for us this is the only way to
fight against contemporary global capitalism. We must
proceed the work Marx began with.
Our ideological enemies are capitalists, utilitarists
and libertarists, who are using
neoliberalism as their disguise. But, we should enter
into alliance with liberal bourgeois and with priests,
who teach us to love our neighbours and compatriots.
Religious atheism is no longer the right method for us
to break the power of the priesthood. Instead, the right
method for us is to break the power of our real enemy;
namely the power of the neoliberal priesthood. And when we are fighting over the content of human
minds, we must first and foremost
discourage the beliefs on utopias offered by our rivals
in the name of democracy and
freedom. We must tell to people ruled by the
dictatorship of markets, that the freedom and
the democracy are not real properties of heartless
capitalism. Markets are a random process and they do not
set freedom within their assumptions. Thus, we must
uncover the idealism on which the neoliberalists are
constructing the realm of false freedom. We must call
into question their doctrine's rational ground .
Today, reason can not provide us with real
alternative, but pessimism. Pessimism is at
present the most dangerous characteristic of human mind.
The combination of optimism of
will and pessimism of reason defines the actual crisis
of humanism, and its drifting into a
defence position when facing market economy
totalitarism. We must keep up at least with
optimism of will. As a result, reason will emerge
without will and will without sense. Will must be
optimistic. But, reason must be neither optimistic nor
pessimistic; but it must be critical. Our heritage from Mr. Marx is a critical reason, not
a Marxist-Leninist reason.
The capitalist world without alternative means three
things; that human being is only
expected to maximize his or her own benefits; that
nature can be freely treated as a utility
product; and that markets should be neutralized and
sacrified beyond the reach of politics.
And eventhough, the political democracy could be seen as
a presumption in the free
markets, it is not a valid hypothesis in reality.
Markets are in reality a random game, where
the outcome is not known to anyone: in reality
competetive markets converge always
towards an unstable state. As a consequence, markets can
not be understood as democracy. And so, even political democracy has lost its real
meaning, if the social decision process
allows markets to be considered as beyond the reach of
democracy.
There has been and there is at present a lot of
discussion about neoliberalism, which has
been dug up from the grave of ideology based on negative
freedom. They even say, that
mankind has now strived its final goal and turned the
social development into a perfect world; namely to the
world of supranational markets.
Utilitarism is represented as a postmodern version of
this old way of thinking where freedom is submitted to
maximisation of welfare. First and foremost comes
welfare, and only then freedom. And as far as the
libertarists are concerned for them freedom comes first,
and then welfare.
As far as the alternatives are concerned, after the
experiments of socialism in the former
Soviet-Union, the left wing can not start to construct
an alternative for markets by basing it
on physical exchange, barter trade or on clumsy
planning.
Now that the left wing is not proposing any reguests
concerning the return to regulated capital markets -
this probably could only be possible in the national
states - one can draw a conclusion, that at present the
necessity of markets is confessed generally as social
imperative. That is to say there is no way to set any
functioning constrains for capital
markets.
Global capitalism can not be governed from and be
reversed to the history of Western ideas. Global
capitalism has not been born in the stream of great
ideas. Nevertheless, it has conquered every corner of
the world and it is putting a heavy pressure on our
minds. Global capitalism is a power executing the logic
of capitals with the aid of the newest and highest
technology.
There is no use to predict a destruction of
capitalism. It has already been done too many
times before with too flimsy arguments. To predict a
destruction is far too easy, and besides
by now one should have learnt that markets are flexible.
This has been prerequisite for their
self-survival. And so it is more likely that global
capitalism can only be suffocated by its own
bubble logic.
In the new supranational capitalism there is an
important dimension in addition to the liberal capital
markets; this is production sphere or production
processes. The capital markets can not function without
material production. And when in the production process
nature is the one to be deplored, these markets are
something more absolute than the money sphere on human
minds and in memories of computers.
Then there is also a third sector to be added, namely
services. The free trade of services is
demanded by the World Trade Organisation. This supports
the demands for privatisation of
public services.
The logic of capitalism combines locality and
globality; the trend to locate in one place and to
delocalize in all places. When the capitals are
conducted by the logic of highest returns, this means
from the point of view of labour intensive industry that
this logic can only be
optimized in the countries with low labour costs; where
labour force can be exploited
efficiently without any social responsibilities or
without any limits to nature's deploration. It is
good to be reminded that this in fact was the way to act
for the 19th century societies in
Europe.
The so-called wage earner has another role to play in
addition to his or her role as a
producer, when he or she is at the same time a buyer of
others working products; namely a
consumer. The economics as it is a bourgeois science can
not answer, how the markets can provide the purchasing
power to consume all goods produced.
The moving forces in the rival between different
logics are the logic of capitalism, the logic of
integration and the logic of fighting over natural
resources. People for status quo, the
conservatives, are the ones to keep the logics
unaltered. People for the change are the ones to have
the logic changed. The left must be the one to change
the logic and write the new methaphysics. If we lose in
the fight over human minds, we will lose as well the
fight over reality.
It can be argued that in the industrialized countries
the big changes are born from outside the system. They
are born as coming compulsions; for example in the form
of natural
catastrophes or destruction of environment. Or the
system itself could be dis-turbed
endogenously; for example by a stock market crash.
The left should have learnt from the experiences of
our past generations that for us the right
thing to do is to abandon at least in the developed
countries the demands for a revolution.
If the left does neither accept the global capitalist
economic system nor adjust its political
activity to the demands and imperatives presented by the
markets, it must clarify its position
regarding an alternative economic system and its
relation with supranational capitalism. It
has not come to my knowledge that there already exists
any alternative system.
The social dimension of society is connected with the
left; this is the idea of care and
responsibility of our compatriots. Social is different
from socialistic, and the latter cannot be
induced from the former. But, when we think of
alternatives one can not pass the socialism,
eventhough it is not our present knowledge how to define
it.
In the earlier days, socialism was always understood
as commonly owned means of
production. Why was this then? Because the production
was considered becoming
socialized, and this further lead to the understanding
of production means as everybody's
property.
Today, production is more socialized and globalized
than ever, it is supra-nationalized. It is not possible
to understand production means as belonging to all
humans from all nations. And so it is obvious, that the
rapid development of technology and of production has
already
succeeded the old definition of socialism. Such being
the case, it would be wise to keep the
old socialism in the leftist visions only as a matter of
faith; almost like a religious thing.
If the socialism
is defined in the old way denying the right for private
property, one must ask, what actually is being
forbidden. As it is impossible to forbid all private
ownership, so the ones in favor of nationalizing must
explain their aspirations. If one wants to forbid
private ownership in banks, in insurance companies and
in large-scale production, one must on that occasion
also define, who will the new owners be and according to
what logic the production will be governed.
The left stands on a solid ground when it comes to
debating on moral grounds and ethics of
capitalism. Does neosocialism need to be something else
than moral ethos for what is right
and against what is wrong?
The European left has to define its relation with the
Union. As the economy is living its own
life by globalizing and localizing, besides this the EU
is living its own life by centralizing
power and unionizing. This kind of EU is advancing
values, that are controversial to all that
the left has always before been demanding. The free
movement and floating of capitals is
accepted within the general agreements of the EU. The
justice of the EU is governed by the
capitalist logic. According to this the invisible hand
is the system's dictator.
As the EU is the present being of capitalism in Europe,
the Euro Social Democrates provide
together with the right wing the political system needed
for its existance. They want to
enlarge the state governed collectivism and corporatism
into a supranational political
decision process. And besides, it seems to be the case
that militarism is being attached to
the European Social Democrates. With their support and
sympathy the EU is increasing its
own defence industry as well as imposing its own common
defence policy. In this perspective
defence can also be offensive.
The EU provides its citizens accustomed with thinking
themselves as citizens of different
national states feeling of being socially excluded.
Particularly, many Union citizens feel that
alienation gets worse as the eurocracy is heading
towards federalization and supranational
decision making that has nothing to do with real
democracy. There is a danger that market
rationalism and EU's unionizing will lead towards
totalitarism.
Republicanism unites democrates and federalism unites
byrocrates. Could there be any other
counter force for global capitalism except republican
national states?
The left must be international. But, the EU can not be a
little sister for USA. The left is facing
a challenge - almost an impossible task to fulfill -
that is the unification of international and
national solidarity.
In the European union A-citizens are those who have a
permanent job within the A-countries
of the central power. It is a permanent post that makes
a person priviledged. The EU's inner
core consists of countries from the German mark zone;
that is to say the EMU-countries
which are also NATO-countries. The representatives of
the A-citizens determine what the
common interest and the common will in the EU are.
B-citizens are those, whose countries still have a
reasonable social security and a feeling of
national togetherness. If the EU enlarges, the
A-citizens of the new member states will reach
at best only B-citizens level in the EU.
C-citizens are the 60 million poor, 18 million
unemployed and 18 million homeless people
living currently in the EU, as well as all those
dependent on state and on income transfers. If
the EU enlarges, most of the new job seekers in the new
common labour market will be C-
citizens.
The answer of the left is democracy. Neosocialism must
be democracy on all levels.
Ideologically it is first and foremost moral ethos for
right and against wrong. In practice, it
must be favoring the unemployed by a new distribution of
work and shortening of working
hours.
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